How many depressions have we had

Economists think this could herald a sea change in how Americans spend, save and invest their money — changes that will reverberate potentially decades into the future. The government has tried to respond but it has no idea of the scale of the problem it is going to have to deal with. From to , one measure of recessions is the Cleveland Trust Company index, which measured business activity and, beginning in , an index of trade and industrial activity was available, which can be used to compare recessions. The oil crisis, coupled with the rising costs of maintenance of welfare state in most countries led to a recession between and , followed by a period of almost minimal growth and rising inflation and unemployment. This was a mild recession in the period of general growth beginning after Another primarily monetary recession occurred after the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in Over 5, businesses failed within the first year of the Panic, and unemployment was accompanied by protest meetings in urban areas. President George H. Loss of confidence in copper coins due to debasement and counterfeiting led to commercial freeze up that halted the economy of several northern States and was not alleviated until the introduction of new paper money to restore confidence.

National Bureau of Economic Research. Many who lived through it regarded it to have been worse than the ‘s depression at times. Contemporary accounts apparently indicate it was considered a slight recession. The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the English-speaking world and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Retrieved February 29,

There have been as many as 47 recessions in the United States dating back to the Articles of Confederation, and although economists and historians dispute certain 19th-century recessions, [1] the consensus view among economists and historians is that “The cyclical volatility of GNP and unemployment was greater before the Great Depression than it has been since the end of World War II. The NBER defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than two quarters which is 6 months, normally visible in real gross domestic product GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales”. In the 19th century, recessions frequently coincided with financial crises. Determining the occurrence of preth-century recessions is more difficult due to the dearth of economic statistics, so scholars rely on historical accounts of economic activity, such as contemporary newspapers or business ledgers. Although the NBER does not date recessions before , economists customarily extrapolate dates of U. Their work is aided by historical patterns, in that recessions often follow external shocks to the economic system such as wars and variations in the weather affecting agriculture, as well as banking crises. Major modern economic statistics, such as unemployment and GDP, were not compiled on a regular and standardized basis until after World War II.